


Crash-Clatter

by TurtleTotem



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [36]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Blood, Head Injury, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 16:51:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21377380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleTotem/pseuds/TurtleTotem
Summary: Victor, who never falls, is lying flat on the ice. There's blood around his head, and he's not moving.(On Tumblrhere.)
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Series: Tumblr Ficlets [36]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/647384
Comments: 5
Kudos: 108





	Crash-Clatter

Yuuri didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty about flaunting his greater stamina to Victor; Victor had him so thoroughly bested in the arenas of grace and elegance that he felt it only fair. Unfortunately, that meant that Victor teased him any time he did need a break.

“Oh, have I finally skated you into the ground?” Victor called, sliding by in a lazy backwards spiral as Yuuri left the ice and reached for his water bottle.

“We’re not all legends, Vitya, mortals need water occasionally,” Yuuri retorted, and took a long pull from his bottle.

Victor laughed, leaped idly into a double loop, then a triple lutz, and continued on his way.

Something lit up the screen of his phone, sitting on the bench; Yuuri picked it up, and barely had time to register the cheerful text from his mother before he heard the unmistakable crash-clatter of a skater falling on the ice.

Yuuri, glancing up instinctively, assumed he would see Yurio, swearing in loud Russian as he rubbed a new bruise on his hip or knee. But Yurio was peripherally visible against the opposite wall, stretching his leg inhumanly up behind his head. Victor, who never fell, was the one lying flat on the ice.

Completely still.

Later, Yuuri would care whether he dropped his phone and water bottle far enough apart that the phone wasn’t ruined. Much later. Not now.

Yuuri reached him first, Yurio not far behind, and collected bruises for his own knees as he all but collapsed onto the ice beside him. “Victor! Can you hear me? Vitya!”

Victor still wasn’t moving. His eyes were closed, and there was blood spreading under his head.

“I’m calling for help,” Yurio said. “Don’t move him. Do you hear me, idiot? Don’t move him!” Yurio’s skates sounded different, choppy, all speed and no grace, as he made for the side of the rink.

It was a serious effort of will for Yuuri not to snatch Victor up into his arms. Hands shaking, he only touched Victor’s face with the backs of his fingers. “Vitya, wake up! Come on, wake up!”

Seconds ticked and ticked and ticked by, something inside Yuuri’s chest drawing up tighter and tighter until he thought he would scream, and then—

Victor’s eyelashes fluttered, and he frowned, moving a hand toward the bleeding spot on his head.

A loud and embarrassing sob burst out of Yuuri’s throat, unstoppable and followed by several more. His face was already a mess of tears.

“Yuuri? Hey, what are you doing here?” Victor’s voice was creaky and weak. “Oh, we’re at the rink? What’s going on?” He touched his head. “Ow.”

“Don’t move,” Yuuri gasped, putting a hand on Victor’s chest as he tried to sit up. “You hit your head. Lie still.”

“Okay. Hey, hey, it’s okay.” He reached up to cup Yuuri’s cheek.

It wasn’t okay, Yuuri realized in mounting horror, clinging hard to the offered hand. It was, in fact, a full-blown panic attack of the sort that, anxious as he might be, he hadn’t had in _years_.

Desperately he tried to slow his breathing, tried to force his body to relax instead of drawing into the tightest possible knot, heart thundering in his ears. Victor’s voice seemed to be coming from the bottom of a well; Yuuri couldn’t make out a word, and couldn’t stop Victor when he sat up and drew Yuuri into his arms.

Yuuri had never reacted well when his mother or sister tried to hug him during an attack—it was too claustrophic, too confining. That overwhelming need to escape didn’t come, though, with Victor. He didn’t feel trapped. He felt protected. It began to be possible, after a few agonizing minutes, to unwind himself, bit by bit, down from the highest pitch of irrational terror.

Victor kept talking to him, the whole time. Victor, with blood still soaking into the collar of his practice uniform, his voice blurry and wavering between English and Russian, was paying attention to nothing but the fact that Yuuri was upset.

“You two are both completely worthless! The ambulance is coming. Victor, stop squirming around!” Yurio, keeping his knees fastidiously away from the puddle of blood, was trying to press a thick pad of gauze to the injured side of Victor’s head.

It was over, finally, panic draining out of Yuuri’s body and leaving him tingly and twitchy and exhausted. “I’m okay, Vitya. Let Yuri help you.”  
  
“Yeah, of course,” Victor said, continuing to be cooperative in no way whatsoever. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes.” Yuuri burrowed into Victor’s chest. “I love you, Vitya.”

“Aww, I love you, too.” Victor kissed the top of his head. “Who are you again? Kidding! Kidding!” he yelped as Yuuri swatted him in the chest. “Be still, Yuuri. You’ll be okay, the ambulance is coming.”

“The ambulance is coming for _you_, Victor.” Yurio flicked his ear, still struggling to keep pressure on the wound.

“What? Really?” Victor reached back and touched his head, brought his hand back covered in blood. “Wow! How about that? Maybe that’s why I feel so dizzy. Let’s lie down, Yuuri, hmm?”

They curled up together on the ice, Victor persuaded to keep his head still with the bandage pinned under it. That was how the medics found them, with Yurio skating in circles around them and scolding them like he would never run out of reasons they were dumb.


End file.
